


Do Homunculi Dream of Alternative Lives?

by fullmetal_historian



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: I might make more content for this later, It's very short and simple, Lightly implied Edward/Envy, M/M, Other, Pride!Edward AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24388582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetal_historian/pseuds/fullmetal_historian
Summary: You cannot speak of that, Envy.You cannot speak of names.You cannot speak of him.Your name is Pride, and you heard your real name.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 84





	Do Homunculi Dream of Alternative Lives?

You are standing there. You look at your hands. One is purely black, made of false creation; the other, normal. _Human._ The word echoes in your mind, but feels so foreign. The ground below you is grey, concrete. You do not know why you know this. This place is familiar. This place feels safe.

You look over your right arm. It is completely black. You can tell it is not the same as the rest of you. There are slits, and when you flex, sometimes they open; they are eyes. Red-pupil eyes, which all take time to look at you. There are thousands of them, large and small. Taking a look at their partner. You know they are a part of you, but also, not entirely. They can act on their own, taking part to look around.

While you are processing yourself, you are suddenly grabbed by the arms, by a familiar and yet far away presence. _Brother Envy,_ you think to yourself. Long, together strands of hair move with the thin, pale figure. You watch them with unamused, unchanging eyes, and as you are jolted, you get a small look at your hair; it is long, and black, and very flat. It has no life to it, not like theirs.

“Hey, are you awake yet? Are you there? Are you listening?” The person in front of you asks, panic-stricken. You do not change your expression, but simply look in confusion. You wonder why they would ask such a thing. Their face is twisted with worry, regret, possibly the same kind of confusion. Perhaps.. care? 

You see others when you look around. _Sister Lust, Brother Greed, Brother Gluttony._ These titles all simply come to mind almost instantly, as if you knew them before you had even come to. You know them so well; they are your family. You have a Father, somewhere in this room, in this chamber. His seat is nearby, empty and large, like how you feel. There are tubes of creatures and darkness around the room. Souls who could never be strong, like you lot.

You are shaken again. They begin to look more shocked, more frightened, as they shake you.

“Come on! You’re there, right? Say something to me! You can’t have changed that much…!”

You decide to speak. Your voice comes out cranky and frog-like at first. You get a hold of your words, and wrangle them into a struggling sentence filled with irritation, apathy, and knives.

“Envy, what is your _problem_?”

Envy looks at you in disbelief, their grip lightening a little as they lean back, a near horror in their red eyes. You grunt, and move yourself back so they cannot touch you anymore. The other homunculi are looking at you -- that’s what they’re called, right? -- with welcoming energies. Your sister, Lust, smiling at you with a big, wide grin, full of deception and with a certain breed of pleasure you only recognize as hers. Gluttony is a more childlike joy, chewing on his large fingers and shuffling; he cannot wait to play. Greed, when you look to him, looks different than what your mind says to you. Instead of the image that your brain knew, you were welcomed by a Xingese man, a black uniform and black coat. He is grinning wickedly, with an aura of someone so familiar and yet so _distant._

"Looks like it worked," your sister says hesitantly, "It's not rejecting him yet, and he seems to be fine."

You end up looking back to Envy. They are nearly tearing up, shaken by your simple, five-word statement. They bite their lip, the expression turning into one of a similarly-mirrored anger.

“Are you kidding me?! You can’t remember a damn thing, can you?! Where’s the ▉▉▉▉▉▉ that I know?! That I _cared_ about, that _we_ cared about?!”

When they speak those horrid words, they feel like a bullet going through your brain; they make you think at a million miles an hour, and yet, static. It tears through you like a weapon in war, like a million small hands, like the pain of losing someone dear, a hollow husk as you look at your _brother_ \---?

You let out a horrified hollar, a yell guttural in breed and sourced in a deep, physiological pain. You grip your thin hair, pulling it with your sharp claws and trying to find release from the headache that was just given to you over Envy’s words. You feel your siblings become unsteady, a specific gasp exiting your sister’s artificial lungs. _Disbelief,_ they feel. You feel your knuckles’ want to become white, to pull and to rip until you can no longer care to live, like there is a million small needles trying to exit your skin.

Lust retrieves you, coming to your side and holding you as you fall a little. Your eyes fall to the sight of your leg, which is metal and reeks of a past you feel that you had. The sting becomes worse, and you lean into your sister as she grips you tightly. The pain feels like lava, like a searing, white light, piercing through every cell in your body.

When the white pain begins to subside, you pant and look at the sweat that has fallen onto your hands, onto the floor. There is a little bit of vomit. Your head feels as if it is swimming, that you are floating and that you are not real. It is hard to keep yourself up, and your sister is speaking words to you you cannot understand. Gluttony comes to your left, and looks at you, fear in his large, void-like eyes.

Your Father emerges from the darkness, looking over the sight of you as he sits in his unholy throne. He crosses a leg over, and lays a head against your hand. You feel sick.

“You do not speak like that to your brother; you know you cannot speak of that, Envy.” Father speaks, his voice echoing through each of your souls as if it were the New Testament, or perhaps the only Testament. “ _Pride,_ are you alright?”

That’s right. Your name is Pride. You are their youngest brother. You look at your hands, and feel the words echoing through you as your vision begins to mimic the color of your right arm.  
  


You cannot speak of that, Envy.  
  


You cannot speak of names.  
  


You cannot speak of him.  
  


You cannot speak of _Edward_ , your brain says.  
  


 _You_ **_were_ ** _Edward._


End file.
